It’s pretty typical for a top trader to move from a bank to a commodities trading house. What’s much less common is for an investment banker to make the jump – but it does happen.
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Josh Presley arrived at Trafigura as its head of corporate finance this month, based in Geneva. He joined the commodities trader from SMBC, where he spent two and a half years as the bank’s head of debt capital markets. He was a managing director (MD) at Credit Suisse before that, where he worked on and off between 2007 and 2023.
Trafigura was advertising for a head of corporate finance back in April. The advertisement said the role would involve “balance sheet optimization” as well as leading the fund’s “global funding strategy”. It also involved overseeing the fund’s debt structure, which seems most relevant to Presley’s experience.
It’s not hard to move a sell to Trafigura. Its main UK subsidiary, Trafigura Limited, posted average compensation of $240k for its employees for year ending September 2024 (the latest period for which figures are available). At the very highest level, where Presley likely slots in, its global employee-shareholders received around $3bn in dividends for their work 2025. There are around 1,400 such people. That comes to around $2.1m each in dividends, on average.
Presley did not respond to a request for comment. SMBC and Trafigura declined to comment.
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